The Warrior Princess
by SwiggitySwooty
Summary: A new animal joins the Central Park Zoo's numbers, but little do they know this northern warrior is on a near impossible mission for home and will stop at nothing to go back. Her journey becomes easier when, trying to help, Kowalski's invention backfires, turning them all human. Somewhat easier. (First fanfiction! Rated T for some language here or there, upcoming slight graphics)
1. The Northern Warrior

The Warrior Princess

It wasn't every day that new animals were sent to the Central Park zoo to join the numbers. Admittedly, it was often, not particularly was it every day, per se. It was, however, in any case, especially unusual that the zoo was sent carnivores. In fact, the last large "predator" the residents had seen was Alex, but he'd gone on an unexpected trip with three of his other Africa oriented friends, the hippo Gloria, Melman the giraffe, and Marty the zebra, but the four had yet to return.

Well, that wasn't exactly correct either. They'd seen them since but they'd been prancing around with some circus troupe and had disappeared as soon as they arrived. They were probably touring all over America at this very moment, playing part in some spectacular flashy and neon glowing show. It had been a very exciting day indeed for the zoo animals that day, but crazy about the screeching and demands of the little less than mad animal control lady once the tranquilizer effects wore off, they were Indeed NOT. That part had been relatively unpleasant.

The penguins after the ordeal had, in the end, elected to rejoin the zoos numbers (A few unwelcome lemur guests tagging along shortly after), deciding to take a break from the excitement to focus on their operations. Kowalski namely was happy for this change in direction. He'd not nearly the time to work on his experiments since they'd set out for the South Pole that year ago, closest in fact, he'd gotten to do anything close to his hobby was build the plane. But a plane had already been invented so it wasn't nearly as much fun. Private, if you could get him to admit it, was slightly relieved. All the danger they'd gone through, all the hits he'd had to take (i.e. getting hit repeatedly by trucks in operation "Tourist Trap", serving as live bait for the fossa…).

Which especially made it more surprising, (and slightly horrifying to private as his last encounter with was not a pleasant one,) that the newest neighbor was indeed a hunter, as evident by the sharply pointed paw print labeled on the delivery note. (The zoo officials had elected to start labeling the animals dangerous or not due to an incident with one of the newest reptile house members and a zookeeper's hand. A paw print with pointed claws was dangerous; a paw print more close to a common dogs was not.) Not to mention it was from their neck of the woods. Not south, but north, relatively similar biome, to be honest, south a bit more brutal than the north, so there was what could be made of that.

"What is it?" Private inquired to his leader or really anyone who'd answer him, an obvious concern lacing his voice, but he didn't dare take his eyes off the crate all the zoo animals had gathered around.

Julien was keeping a respective distance, considering his outgoing nature. He'd seen enough of what the fossa could do that he'd be sure there was at least a spare Mort lying around at all times to put between him and any predators. Maurice if Mort was unavailable. He eyed the box suspiciously. He hasn't had time (nor the resources, to be honest,) to learn much about the animals outside of his home: Madagascar. Really, each and every new animal brought was a totally new being to look over, (and effectively judge at that.)

"Don't know. We'll just have to crack it open and see." Skipper replied simply, he stood flippers laced behind his back in a proud posture. Skipper, in all reality, couldn't have been more unconcerned if he'd tried. After all they'd been through in the past year it should be well known him and his soldiers were a force to be reckoned with, if they couldn't protect these animals (should the need arise, mind you,) then no one could.

"Where're Phil and Mason when you need them…?" Marlene piped in with a groan. If they were here they could read the note, but it was that exact reason they'd opted out today. If there was a chance Julien would get devoured, or at least Mort, then they'd have no part in stopping it.

"It'll be fine Marlene, me and the boys' got this. Rico?" He cued, to which the Mohawk'd penguin in question responded by coughing up a crowbar from within the curious hammer space that was his stomach with an unpleasant gagging noise to go with it. He'd been up on top of the crate within an instant, a mad grin across his beak as he pried it open with an enthusiastic 'crack!' sounding off before the front fell to the floor, effectively letting loose whatever was inside. Rico stood; crowbar now rose above his head ready to whack whatever the beast was across the head if it tried anything.

Instead, it was a rather pleasant surprise. The animal within had been lounged politely on her belly looking forward with an expectant glance, paws crossed in front of herself. Pointed ears perked once her container had been opened and her vision was filled with visions of black and white. A wolf, she was a wolf, Kowalski noted immediately. Phew, it wasn't a small bear somehow packed in there. (Kowalski had a habit to make the worst of situations). However, when she'd stood to her full height he'd realized she may as well have been. She was an arctic wolf, the anatomically biggest of all the wolf species, pure almost blinding white fur as she stepped into the light and soulful icy blue eyes, painted… with no less than a look of annoyance.

"Well, it's about time, I thought you were going to keep me in there all day." She'd stated, and left hanging in the air, ears pulled flat against her cranium. No one had known exactly what to expect. Skipper was indifferent, which wasn't unusual, Private and Kowalski looked equally as curious but probably for different reasons. She could have been an interesting study topic for the taller penguin, but private thought she looked like a fairly nice animal, and she hadn't tried to eat any of them yet. Maybe they could be friends? He'd never met any kind of wild canine before, but he'd heard they were very spiritual beings. He almost chuckled, her and Skipper might disagree a bit if that were the case. Rico was slightly disappointed the animal hadn't been a hostile one and sighed sadly before jumping down from his spot on the box, going to stand beside Kowalski.

Marlene on the other hand suddenly found herself little more than ecstatic. Another girl! Finally! And there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her yet! There may actually be a chance for her to make a girl friend who isn't completely disgusting or singing repeatedly "take me out to the ball game" (and only that singular line), none of them here had any kind of idea of how desperately starved she was for some girl time. Though there was that one time Skipper had thought himself a female but… that had just been awkward and forced. Especially when he had insisted they talk about boys… She wouldn't go into detail on this.

The wolf quirked a single ear when she realized no one was going to speak, and supposed she should introduce herself in this case. "I am Sesi. I am from Alaska." She followed up, a slight accent on her tongue. Her eyes swept about the group, examining them all carefully. It had been a while since she'd actually been in Alaska, hence her accent hanging by a thread, but in what she had lost, she had gained in knowledge. She was already familiar with most of these animals; Penguins, they were from the South Pole. An otter (North America river, to be specific), commonly found in middle North America, a few other animals here and there, easy ones like a kangaroo (who she'd admit was staring her down with a menacing glare,) an elephant looking in from the window… that was different. And then… Was that a squirrel? Her mistake, Squirrels, she corrected herself. Three fluffy balls of fur sat just a bit behind her on a counter, bushy striped tails and wide amber colored eyes. Well that was unusual for. What was the one wearing on his head?

'Squirrels… odd things…' She'd concluded to herself.

Meanwhile Julien would not have believed the Sky Spirits could have sent him a more beautiful angel. He'd thought Arlene, the rare arctic mink, had been beautiful. He'd never realized just how wrong he could be, she completely paled in comparison to _her_. Hm, that makes two arctic animals Julien was certain he'd fallen in immediate love with. One could say he had a bad case of Arctic Chill (an opposite to the famous Jungle Fever).

"Yaaaay! King Julien's drooling on me!" Mort squeaked in delight at the tiniest form of contact with his glorious leader, even if in most cultures spit is a quite disrespectful thing, intentional or non… But Mort doesn't particularly have boundaries so it hardly matters anyhow. The animals turned to stare at the scene before them in slight disturbance and some amusement before mentioned Lemur King was brought back to reality, promptly wiping his mouth, and shoving Mort away deeming him "too close to the royal feet".

'Royal? Well I suppose that explains the hat…' Sesi mused to herself. 'Or he's just crazy…' that was equally likely, she determined, and almost laughed to herself.

"…Anyways,-" Skipper started, "Welcome to the Central Park Zoo. I trust this isn't the first you've been to?" Most animals had already been to at least a few by time they got around to New York. There was still a possibility however.

"You'd be right." She nodded shortly. She'd indeed been to at least a couple others, Hoboken being one. Dreadful place, but Sesi was clever. Bite a keeper, you get transferred, simple as that. He would have definitely felt her chomp on his leg the next day, she smiled as she remembered.

"Good. Then I don't think I need to remind you, being from the wild, that we don't hunt here. You get food from the keepers and that's it." He concluded. This was generally the only rule that the animals had to follow. They could fight amongst themselves (and often did, the leader penguin stole a glance at Joey,) but none of the animals here were killers. Skipper, did however, acknowledge the fact that some animals need meat to survive and that fact couldn't be changed no matter what they did. Hell, Alex the lion had been just a hair away from tearing into his best friend in the wake of starvation. The penguins themselves ate fish, so they could understand this better than anyone, and were reminded quite effectively once when the zoo had tried to feed them fish-cakes; A terrible soy cake in the shape of a fish but not nearly as appealing as the real thing.

"Yes, I understand." She noted duly, almost boredly even, as if she'd heard this whole spiel before. "'No eating of the other zoo animals'" She quoted from an unknown source, her pace of tone quickened as the she-wolf stared incredulously at the leader penguin "It's not like I'm a savage, you know, I have my decencies about me."

"No offence miss, we just need to make sure. You understand." Private followed shortly, backing up his commanding officer. Skipper always gave off such a mistrusting vibe, he'd find it hard to believe that even the thickest animal couldn't detect it. True, he probably hadn't meant to offend her, as stated, but the younger penguin didn't imagine it'd be a nice feeling to be told repeatedly that you shouldn't be going around killing your neighbors (because that's somewhat what they'd expect you to do). The wolf bowed her head respectively in a silent acknowledgment of the apology.

Marlene was practically ready to burst from excitement. She'd throw up a single paw into the air and immediately the room's attention was drawn to her, including Sesi who sat, ears perked now. "I can show her around and to her exhibit." She volunteered enthusiastically, going to take a spot besides her new assured friend, a broad smile on her features. She spoke lowly to the she-wolf "You would not _believe_ how long I've waited for another girl to join here; these guys are all as dumb as a sack of potatoes." She laughed, Sesi following suit.

"Very well," Skipper noted "You know where it is? We can escort you." He was still a bit wary of their newest zoo animal, but if she were clever enough to get this far as a spy, then she wouldn't go rampaging as soon as the two were out of sight. Marlene would likely be fine with her for now, but they'd have to keep a tight surveillance on the canid.

"Ugh, Skipper, you know I CAN do things on my own right?" She groaned, the penguins were always butting into her business! If they would leave her alone long enough for some girl time with the newest neighbor then she could be one happy otter but she highly doubted this would happen judging by Skipper's attitude. Sesi, meanwhile, was smiling at the continued bickering. It reminded her well of herself and her family.

After things had settled down between the two, the wolf and otter had departed for the newly built exhibit on the opposite side of the zoo, chatting away; Marlene could last be heard noting again the less than respectful opinion of the boys' IQs whilst they did so, Sesi following with hearty laughs in response.

"Girls…" all the men concluded when mentioned otter and canid were out of earshot.


	2. Introductory

"So you're really from Alaska?" Marlene gaped at the pale wolf keeping a gentle pace beside her person, curiously on all fours, (Marlene didn't think she'd seen anyone stay on all fours unless needed or around people). In any case, however, the otter in question had been captive born. In fact, just about everyone here besides the lemurs were captive born, so an animal brought directly from the wild was quite an unusual thing indeed. "What's it like up there?" She continued. Oh, to be able to step outside the zoo's walls and not go into a 'feral rage' (as Kowalski had put it), attacking the nearest Julien in sight… Marlene would give anything. For now though, it seemed like she'd have to live vicariously through her newest friend.

"Yes… and, cold." She guffawed. "Very cold." She reaffirmed her point once more before continuing again on a more serious note. "Beautiful though. The snow may chill but everything graceful and magnificent pales in comparison to the Divine Lights spanning itself over the night sky… or," Her tone quickened once more, like some kind of nervous tic, "Northern Lights, I think you'd know them as…" She noted, remembering not every animal shares her culture. "It's even better on a full moon." And with that, she'd concluded her response, leaving it dangling in the air for Marlene to answer on. It was her people's most celebrated times; Her pack finding themselves standing under a wide moon, the aurora proudly painting itself across the horizon. Many songs would be sung that night.

"Wow." Marlene had a brow quirked at Sesi. Did anyone really talk like that anymore? How she just had? She thought she remembered seeing something about wolves being pack animals, each one had different jobs, she quickly recalled. "Were you a diplomat or story-teller or something? Talk about fancy, big words there." She remarked on the she-wolf's speech. It would receive a perk of the ears and an icy glance from the corner of said canid's eye as she considered the question for a short second or two, (Marlene did have to admit being stared at by a predator of any sort like that made her somewhat uncomfortable, but felt slightly bad that she had felt such a way afterwards).

"… Sort of like a diplomat." She'd answered eventually, and seeing it obvious that was as far as the conversation should go, Marlene would battle her curious nature to not press on.

Luckily enough, the walk around the zoo was a relatively short one and they were rapidly coming up on Sesi's exhibit. Said wolf cast a glance over her new home, taking in the artificial environment, painted white and chilled to simulate her birthplace. It was fairly similar to her place at the other zoos, but there was indeed a difference. She'd noted whilst walking around the area that was this place, all the pins were quite… well, they looked rather half-assed to be blunt, compared to others. The others had presented her with a challenge at least, in her attempts to escape, but these; she could have just jumped right out of her exhibit whenever she pleased and waltz out the front.

What was there to stop her? What was there to stop _them?_ She couldn't imagine being content living your life in captivity being watched over for pleasure by the humans. Even if you were born into it you'd have to wonder about the outside world every now and again, right? It puzzled her, truly, the idea of it all, but she hadn't the time to press into the matter. She hadn't much time for anything really, these days…

"Thank you," Sesi smiled softly, eyes taking another sweep over the limited lands within the fence "It looks nice", she half-lied through her teeth, face remaining an unreadable slate besides the smile playing across her jowls. Within the exhibit looked at least more efforted than the one at Hoboken, but she still dreaded the idea of remaining in any zoo, and frankly, was almost sick of the thought. She could easily make a run for it tonight, Canada was directly above New York if the maps she'd seen were correct, and then she'd at least be in the right ballpark to get home.

"Sure thing! Come see me or Skipper if you have any questions or want to talk about anything." The otter called back over her shoulder, already started off on a slow jog back to her own home, before being stopped by the she-wolf.

"Skipper?" She called back. Marlene could have face-palmed. No one else had introduced themselves; of course she wouldn't know who that was. She turned back,

"Yeah, the penguin you were talking to earlier, you know, about yay-high" The otter gestured with her paws, a pretty accurate description of the leader penguin's height. Not much more than herself. "Commando sort of thing going on… You really can't miss them, they get into everything."

"Oh, alright." What exactly was commando? Sesi hadn't the foggiest notion on the subject; in truth, she had been in captivity for a good while now, but she hadn't the time to learn everything about the civil life. She continued anyhow, as if she'd understood the part, "Will do." and gave a quick nod, but doubted she'd really need to go to either in all actuality. It was midmorning, but if she could help it, she'd be gone by the next.

This, however, wouldn't stop the others from coming to see her instead. No, she'd have many guests throughout the day, very little of which were human (not the ones that observe however, but rather keepers. It must have been an off day for the zoo.) The penguins would stop by for a bit so they could formally introduce themselves, and only now did the she-wolf think she can understand what Marlene meant by 'commando' seeing how they'd forcefully barged their way into her exhibit, effectively startling her. It probably wouldn't have had that effect if someone hadn't used explosives.

She stared, her icy blue eyes wide at the intruders coming up from the manhole just a few feet away, shocked from her spot she had been peacefully sunbathing in and onto her paws, hackles raised. It was like instinct that she'd drop into her default fighting stance, looking less like a frightened civilian and more akin to, with lips pulled slightly back to reveal pearly fangs, a belligerent ready to rip someone's throat out… but as soon as she had, it was gone again, her tensed muscles relaxed and fur returning from its puffed state once she'd seen who her "assailants" were; Skipper and his troupe of penguin followers who she'd yet to learn the names of. Her reaction, however, wouldn't go unnoticed by the commander, as she would have preferred.

"What was that about?!" She blanked, sounding thoroughly exasperated. In her whole two years of transferring from zoo to zoo across the nation, she didn't think she'd ever been so rudely intruded on.

"We came to officially introduce ourselves." The eldest of the four replied simply as if it were a normal occurrence, (or who she guessed was the eldest, him being the obvious leader after all). Said eldest would make a mental note of her jump to action upon their entrance. It hadn't just been result of a lack of etiquette as it turns out; it had been a test of sorts… they did also, in any case, have a lack of etiquette worthy of noting on.

"I'm Skipper" He started, introducing himself first, then gesturing to the rest, he added: "These are my men; Kowalski," He pointed to the tallest of the four who would smile politely to her, "Rico," And then there was one, curiously, with a Mohawk and a scar spanning over the left side of his beak, that would merely grunt in response to his name being called on, (looks like she isn't the only fighter here, the canid mused to herself). "And Private." This left the shortest and obviously youngest of the penguins judging by his wide eyes and broad smile as he waved a flipper at her.

The wolf settled back on her haunches as she looked them all over, not particularly sure how to react to what had just happened (and suddenly they were acting so polite and neighborly?) It confused her a bit, but she wouldn't act on her feelings, settling simply to say. "Well, it's nice to meet you all, but can you next time maybe not blow a hole in the floor? There is a front gate, yes?"

"It's always nice to meet somebody new." Private agreed with her, but completely disregarded her request on the not bursting their ways into her pin anymore. She was glad she wouldn't be staying here if that was what she'd have to deal with, and suddenly felt very bad for Marlene that she'd have to be left here with them once she was gone… and then when she found another three figures making their way through the manhole and into the becoming very rapidly crowded space, she found all feelings for Marlene gone, replaced by her own desperate desire to leave.

Her attention shifted to the new figures within her exhibit, ears going flat against her head in annoyance… and, ah, yes, she remembered them. "King" Julien, and… Mort, if she had heard correct, while he was being pushed away by the tallest of the three for touching his feet. She had to admit, the shortest was indeed a little creepy (being named after death itself, and mix that with it having a foot fetish…not to mention those big eyes that stare into your soul). She probably wouldn't be crazy about having him grope her paws either… And still, she had yet to find out the… er, heavier-set… one's name.

"Nice indeed, but it is being even better when that someone is as pretty as you," the so-called king said whilst going down on a single knee and grabbing her by a hand to plant a light kiss on. "Almost as pretty as me." He added before she could respond, but only after thoroughly smooching said paw. You could almost hear the eyes collectively rolling in their skulls at the whole scene before them, but as for Sesi, she could not have been _more_ horrified. She'd eaten animals this size (and relatively similar in looks too). Not only that but… going… inter-species… the thought'd never even crossed her mind… she would have preferred it stayed that way.

"That's… very kind of you," She'd said, gently tugging her paw from his grip. Was that some kind of compliment? Pick-up line? This guy was supposed to be a king, where was his charisma? "I think." Comparing your looks to another's was no form of flattery, at least in her opinion. She hadn't even any clue of what he actually was.

It was at least another hour before she could finally convince the penguins to go, remarking on how exhausted she was from her trip to New York.

'It worked, I think' she thought amongst herself as the penguins were ready to depart. She thought. The leader penguin, Skipper, ever the suspicious one had seen right through the lie, however; as they say, if you're looking for things, you'll start to see it everywhere you go. He'd have a talk about it with his men back at the base. Though for Sesi the ordeal was not yet over, it was almost another hour of humoring Julien's compliments towards her person before she finally agreed to one of his date proposals just to have him leave her be for the rest of the night: "For preparation" of course. Spirits, she hoped tonight went off without a hitch.


	3. Unexpected Help

Back at the penguins H.Q., Skipper could be found pacing the floor, a single flipper behind his back while he chewed at the tip of the other, like how a human tries to organize their thoughts by chewing on a thumbnail. "I don't trust her." He admitted to no one in particular. He was mostly just thinking aloud at this point, but the others knew full well to pay attention to their leader in any case, as usually it'd be leading up to an operation. If that were to be the case, you'd better be ready to jump into action and you damn well better know what you're doing. So skipper found himself surrounded by his men very shortly after it was said, and he felt prompted to continue. "I don't trust the wolf." He repeated. "She's up to something."

"She did have an unusual reaction to our entrance earlier." Kowalski added, but he was not completely ready to give into Skipper's usual paranoia yet. "Not every individual will act the same as another though in these situations." The tallest of the four concluded. It was possible she _was_ up to something, but it was just as likely she was innocent.

Private decided now may be a good time to interject, being the ever trusting one. "Probably just startled her, really, she is from the wild. I don't know if that reaction would be so unordinary." Skipper considered this for a moment; the two did have a few good points. They'd never really had an animal from the outside before, so it was possible, but his gut was just telling him something was wrong about that she-wolf.

"Blind faith'll get you nowhere, Private." The leader finally determined, with which Rico grunted and nodded in response. He liked the direction this was going; hopefully to where there was an operation ahead. Rico was an action junkie; if he could get away with blowing at least one thing up he'd be one happy penguin. "We'll have to scope it out for ourselves. Tonight." Skipper concluded, and inwardly private groaned. Couldn't they leave Sesi alone? Spying on your neighbors wasn't a nice thing to do. Kowalski, however, was trying to look on the bright side of things. If nothing else, he'd at least get to study the behaviors of a wild animal; Or of a canidae, anyways. He'd never had one of those to observe either, meanwhile Rico was whooping. He loved doing operations, and if he actually talked he could tell them he secretly hoped she _was_ up to something, just for the drama of it all.

They began planning, and it was funny in a way, that on the opposite side of the zoo, this is what Sesi was also doing. Both of their plans would execute this night but only one counted on crashing into the other.

_Later that night~_

The penguins, that night, could be found waiting atop of the gate, (It was necessary when spying on a potential adversary to find an at least decent vantage point. The only place that could have been better than this would have been Julien's, with it having a surrounding view of the whole place but none of the four planned heavily on spending the night with the lemurs). Skipper stared relentlessly through a pair of as-high-powered-as-a-penguin-could-make binoculars, not daring to take his eyes off the enemy's pin for a second.

It was also for a while that they'd been at it. It couldn't have been less than one in the morning, and everyone was feeling very tired, and for Rico, bored. There hadn't even been a hint of movement over by the wolf's den. Private yawned "Skippah, I don't think she's up to anything. She's probably sleeping." He'd tried to reason with the elder penguin, feeling his own eyes drooping from the lack of rest he was continually getting with these midnight operations. Rico yawned "uh huh", he agreed quite undutifully, rubbing at his own eyes. If nothing exciting was going to happen then he may as well be catching some z's. Kowalski himself, even with his abnormally long attention span was starting to become quite underwhelmed. "She might not even try anything tonight if she were to try anything _at all_, Skipper."

It was at this moment that Skipper held up a flipper as if to halt his men from saying anything further. "I've got movement." He confirmed lowly, as if the she-wolf could have heard him from all the way over to their spot on the gate. All three of the others perked immediately and Kowalski brought up his own pair to take a look for himself, finding that indeed the wolf was moving from her den, and easily past the low fences that were the perimeter of her exhibit. She cast a quick look around as though to make sure no one was watching, an ear perked probably to listen for anything out of the ordinary. Sensing nothing she continued her path on quick paws. "What's she doing?" Kowalski asked to himself.

"I don't know." Skipper answered at a quiet whisper. "Let's wait to see what she does." But that was it. She wasn't really doing anything. She wasn't going for any exhibit in particular; in fact she was headed… their way? Had she seen them? "Take cover!" Skipper whispered urgently to the others and they'd not dare disobey. He was, of course, still keeping a diligent eye on the she-wolf, her milky hide made it fairly easy actually. She may have blended in better if it were snowing, but unfortunately for her it was summer, and there was no such possibility… unless Kowalski were to make a weather machine, but that's beside the point.

She kept on her pace though, and as she neared, it became more and more apparent that she had not seen them, but rather was actually, instead, headed for the gate. Skipper would not have usually had a problem with this, an animal trying to leave the zoo's parameters, (They'd set out to do it themselves once, with their monochromatic friend following suit, bringing his friends along with him.) but Sesi was considered a dangerous animal in the public eye. There'd be no way they wouldn't just bring her back here, or worse, shoot her on sight.

Skipper had concluded she indeed was not a spy. A spy wouldn't be looking to leave without at least swiping something first or ransacking their information, a spy if they thought they couldn't get in easy enough would hang around until she thought she'd been accepted into the society; only THEN would they make their move. There wasn't even the possibility she'd have stolen something. They'd either been in their base all day or out watching her, there wasn't a chance she could have. She was nearing very rapidly now, and Skipper gestured for them all to jump down. Even if he and his men had done it once, he wanted to know just why she felt she needed to leave so bad she would be willing to get shot to do it.

Needless to say, Sesi wasn't happy to see the penguins again, giving her yet another nasty scare when they'd landed just a hair away from where she was to place her next step. She was a little more expecting of it this time however; she'd seen herself just how nosy the four were, but it didn't mean she would act any less hostile.

"I'm leaving. You're not stopping me." She snarled down at the penguins with ears pressed flat against her head and jowls pulled completely back. Even if she was small among her own race she still found she could effectively tower over the south-pole animals, even on all fours. They could try to stop her all they wanted, but she'd put up one hell of a fight. If there was a party to come unscarred from it, she was certain it would be her; after all, there was a reason that she'd made it all the way from Zoo Atlanta to Central Park.

"Stand down, soldier, we're on your side here." Skipper started. So, his guess was correct after all, she was a fighter indeed. Or she was at least _willing_ to battle, anyways; she did look comfortable within her stance though, so likely she was used to the scene but there was still a possibility. He continued, "You realize if you step outside that gate though, chances are you'll be shot?"

She faltered.

Her lips dropped back to a more neutral state, fur evening itself out. Suddenly she was very distant. No longer was she staring at the four arctic animals before her, but rather, she seemed to be staring _through_ them. She'd been travelling all this time by human transportation, zoo to zoo. She hadn't out and roamed around a city before, especially not so one as famously crowded as New York City. She hadn't even taken into account the possibility of being shot, but she very quickly realized that was a very real possibility.

"I need to get home though." She'd said finally, but it ever seemed less like a goal as time went on and more as if a plea.

Years, the wolf had been away from her home for years,… and now she was only half way there, but she was at an impasse all the same. She couldn't leave here, she now realized, and no zoo was going to transfer her to Canada so she could at least get a head start for Alaska.

"Well if that doesn't ring a bell…" Skipper turned back to the others like he was telling some kind of inside joke, to which they all responded with laughter. The times had been some of the best of their lives, trying to get Alex and his group of friends back here, to the Central Park Zoo… for them to just decide they didn't want it anymore… but they needed to settle down for their own reasons. Sometimes Skipper did miss the free lifestyle though... He turned back to the she-wolf, who looked utterly offended, as if they'd been laughing at her and not their own previous adventures, but that soon melted away when he'd said "We can help you."

"You can help me..?" she repeated, sounding stunned. Her eyes were wide, and her ears perked as she thought on it. "No one's helped me before…" It was true. All the animals she'd met were perfectly content with their captive lives, they hadn't time to help her get back home, nor to worry about her predicament. She could understand this, but for someone to actually help her had been unthinkable up till now.

"We can't go with you though, understand; we have too many things to look after here, too many things to leave behind. Unwatched. You get the picture." She nodded, but she hadn't really understood. The thought of somebody helping her was more than enough however, (but she did admit it would have been nice to have someone along with her on her journey…) but, sending her on her way would suffice just fine, she thinks.

"Come with us." This was the last thing the eldest penguin uttered before she found them all sliding swiftly away from her on their bellies and back towards their own exhibit. She almost had to do a double-take. What an odd thing to do… how did it work even? Surely concrete wasn't naturally that slippery, just the physics of it didn't make sense to her… but she wouldn't question it. Some matters weren't meant to be pressed into. She started on a brisk jog after them.

Her being too big to fit into the secretive base the traditional under-the-food-dish way, they'd have to bring her in through the back way, and when she'd caught a glance of the inside she had to admit, it was a bit bewildering.

"You built this all yourselves?" She gaped. It looked so… professionally done. Like up top. She almost found it hard to believe the humans _didn't_ build this.

"Yep, took us three whole months to dig out." Skipper noted proudly. When he'd come back after that year, he'd forgotten just how much this old H.Q. had been like a home to him. And it was again.

"Months?" She repeated "_Months?_ It would've taken my people a year to do this!" She almost gasped. Wow, these penguins were determined weren't they? She had to admit she was quite impressed with them all; they actually reminded her a lot of home. Hard workers, (obviously) close bonds (obviously again), a sort of hierarchy amongst themselves. Very similar, if she had to say.

"We did work very hard on it." Private interjected with a smile. It was nice that someone was finally saying something about their home, let alone it being a compliment. Others had simply deigned to ignore it most of the time.

The she-wolf offered a smile back at him accompanied by a quick bow of the head. She shifted her icy gaze back to the leader penguin. "So how can you help me?" She inquired. "If you can't come with me, anyways?" She found it slightly hard to believe that they could help her and not be there with her on her way to Canada. They wouldn't be able to stop a human from shooting her if they weren't present.

"Kowalski's been working on something. Now this is highly classified so you can't go around telling everyone about it, and especially not where you saw it okay?" He waited, to which she 'okay'd in quick response, and he nodded at her understanding, continuing on, he gestured for Kowalski to go retrieve just whatever it was 'he's been working on' to which the taller penguin responded with a delighted giggle, saying something about 'finally getting to test his new invention' before waddling off to some obscure room in the back. "We can at least help you get out of New York, maybe even farther depending on how quick of a traveler you are, you know how to get to Canada from here, right?

It was about as soon as Skipper finished that Kowalski had already returned, some strange device being cradled in his flippers as tenderly as a newborn. It looked like some sort of mechanical box with a dish sitting on the top of it. Not like a plate dish, but like a T.V. dish, the ones you usually see in alien films, with a few dials and buttons here or there.

"Behold! The Humanator!" He gave it an introduction of grandeur, but Sesi thought the name a bit silly. A few chuckles from Private, who'd had himself sat next to her was enough to indicate he'd thought so too, so she let a few of her own quiet laughs fly, before she actually thought about it some. Did that do what it sounded like it does? Could that really turn her into a human?


	4. Everything Wrong

"It's designed to turn any animal into a human for a predetermined time." Kowalski explained shortly, before continuing again, priding on his work, "The effects won't last for more a week, and can go for as short as a few minutes. We were planning to use it for outside-the-zoo missions." He concluded, meanwhile Skipper looked like he could have had an aneurysm over in the corner. Even if they were helping Sesi with the gadget, she didn't need to know every bit of information on it. The she-wolf elected to ignore Skipper's obvious disdain for Kowalski's slip of the tongue and stayed gawking at the device.

Honestly it had already been difficult enough to believe the penguins had managed this underground base in only three months, but any device like this would be a scientific masterpiece, even among the humans. They probably wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything so prestigious within a lifetime (which for them was incredibly long especially, some would live probably four times her predicted life span,), yet here this machine sat just a few feet away from her. She could fully understand now, why it would be so precious to him. However, the question still remained…

"Does it work?" She asked, fairly perplexed. She'd never seen anything like this before, even just the idea was entertaining. It wouldn't help her if it wasn't complete, however.

"No." Kowalski admitted, and Sesi's ears dropped (but whether it was from disappointment or annoyance from having an incredible rug swept out from under her was anyone's guess,) "Well, not yet, anyways. I'm getting very close though." He reassured, but the canidae hadn't looked anymore convinced.

"No worries, White Fang, we'll have it up in running in probably a few days. You can even be the first to test it." Skipper added, and nothing of what he'd said had made the Alaskan feel any better about her situation. She hadn't particularly cared for the name White Fang, wherever he'd came up with it, but what'd really struck her was the word 'days'… And she really didn't wish to be first to test it, last thing she wanted was to be involved in some lab rat freak accident, but if she were to be getting home, this would be her only shot… So she supposed she had no choice.

It was about that time that they were joined by another animal, who'd come bowling in through the back entrance. Sesi, who'd about had a mini-heart-attack in response, had at first thought it to be the crazed lemur-king she'd had the displeasure of officially meeting with just earlier that day along with his subjects; Mort, and the other who'd she came to know as Maurice (who had mercifully noticed her hints of displeasure at the whole situation, and had tried to pry his leader from her to no avail.) but thankfully, it was instead the otter, Marlene. Sesi could have breathed a sigh of relief.

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you." She said, her attention only half on the she-wolf before she gave the leader Penguin a dubious glare. "I knew it! You're interrogating her aren't you?!" She accused and started for the wolf, going to stand at her side, who had meanwhile been trying to interject and tell her own side of the story but was quickly interrupted again by the café colored mammal. "I thought we agreed that we weren't going to do this to the new animals." She stated, incredulously.

"It's alright Marlene, we're helping her." Private said, defusing the situation rather quickly whilst Rico gave a grunt of agreement.

"…You are?" The otter shifted her gaze from the four, back to her canid friend, "They are?" she repeated herself, to which the wolf responded with a quick nod, they were helping her indeed… but what exactly she was needing help with had been a tad misunderstood by the chestnut animal, and it became rather apparent quickly, when she'd simply stated "I wouldn't let them help you then, they're romantically oblivious."

Wait, what?

Sesi's eyes went wide. Only now did she realize that she actually would be here to uphold her promise to meet up with the lemur king. Her eyes unfocused, giving them a dulled over appearance as she was drawn into obviously a very deep, and horrible consideration of tomorrow, should she not find a way to wriggle out of it. "You know about that?..." She'd said, but had hardly realized it'd actually left her mouth.

"Yeah, the whole zoo knows. Julien wouldn't shut up about it." She griped. He'd come over to exhibit just a bit ago to gloat in her face about how she could quit having to play off her imaginary affections for the king, because he'd have a new girlfriend very shortly. Marlene had to admit, she was a bit disappointed in her girl friend. She would have, if she could have chosen, had someone sought who wasn't so easy apparently, but would say nothing on the matter. They could still probably be friends.

"Wait," The leader penguin threw up his flippers and waved them in front of himself, as if a referee calling a time out, "hold up. What about ringtail?" Skipper quizzed. Spirits, this was embarrassing, Sesi groaned internally, but only before Marlene would continue _for_ her.

"Sesi, here has a date set up with him." Her jaw almost hit the floor. The she-wolf could officially no longer tell if Marlene was joking with her or actually believed she was planning on going, but either way she didn't like it, and would have to clear things up soon by the horrified looks of the others if she wanted to keep any credibility as a professional person.

"No, I don't" Her ears pinned flat against her head, she insisted, straightening her posture to get herself the most convincing leverage she knew how, but then it was lost when she'd thought on the subject some "Well… I guess I do," Once again, she began talking fast. It was obviously a nervous habit, Marlene decided. "But I wasn't PLANNING on being here for it! You penguins saw, I was trying to bail before morning. I just told him that to get him to leave me alone." She almost stammered. This was near the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to her, she couldn't think of another time. Luckily however she wasn't a human yet so she could decently hide said feelings without her face glowing red. Poor, poor humans.

"Wait, you were trying to le-" Marlene started but was nevertheless, interrupted by one of the four penguins, to which she responded by giving them a furious glare.

"So you faked him out?" Private inquired. He, being undoubtedly the most sensitive of the penguins, would probably have some objections to this kind of treatment, and Kowalski being rejected several times by his own love made him feel bad for even the out-of-sorts Julien.

"That's kind of harsh." The tallest added, whilst Rico was giving a hearty laugh from his spot in the back (that hadn't actually sounded like a laugh, but more like a few disturbing 'hu hu's) Rico would, and rather did, consider himself a taken penguin, what with having  
his doll and all… so he could feel free to laugh at the single's predicaments.

"Well, well. Gentlemen, I think we have a heartbreaker in our midst." The leader penguin continued the teasing and the other penguins laughed, and somewhere deep in Sesi's mind she could have sworn she heard a voice, commanding "Kill them, Sesi. Kill them all." From the embarrassment, but that voice wouldn't win today. She'd just settle for being utterly annoyed.

Marlene was ready to finally butt her way into the conversation to ask just exactly why Sesi had felt the need to be leaving, but with the arrival of three more animals (this time through the traditional entrance) she found herself almost as annoyed as the she-wolf had been, except Sesi's expression had been replaced by one of horror at seeing now the lemurs standing before her.

"Well if that is how you are feeling then fine!" The ringtail bellowed at the pale canid, quite visibly upset. He had just been on his way to begin the gloating to the penguins that he'd found himself a much prettier woman than any of them would ever have, when he'd heard his new beloved's voice down in said bird's base. He'd also note they were talking about him, and Julien, being ever the one to love compliments had began to listen in, but nothing said about him had been pleasant, but rather the scorpion-in-disguise had merely tricked him! He had been as the leader penguin had called it: brokety-hearted.

"Julien,-" Sesi started, but he was already turned from her, letting out loud and dramatic sobs that… admittedly could have, with his accent, sounded a bit more like laughter if you hadn't been paying attention beforehand; like an "Ah ha haaa!". As much as she didn't care for the guy, she couldn't stand to see that she'd inadvertently grieved him so. Meanwhile, Maurice and Mort were trying to the best of their abilities to calm down the tallest of their three, Mort himself on the verge of tears after his leader. "Why would you say such things Sesi?"

Never before had Sesi felt so embarrassed, angry, and guilty, and so she just stood herself there not knowing quite what to do, meanwhile the penguins stared at her while she stared at nothing. Maybe this would solve itself if she just stood still. But it wasn't that easy, nay, it would never be that easy, as when Julien had went to run for the ladder out of the base he had unwittingly bowled into the genius penguin knocking his latest invention from his arms, which with he responded with a higher pitched cry than any male animal should have ever uttered, as his precious went crashing to the floor.

It seemed to happen in slow motion; like a car wreck. The minute the box had made contact with the floor, the tiny machine had roared to life, and the room quickly filled with an emerald green, graph-paper like light, with which everyone was temporarily blinded.

"My eyes!" You could have heard rocket all over the room, from various sources, and then the infamous crash of yet another of Kowalski's inventions were hopelessly destroyed resonated through the base, an undoubtedly all around the zoo (at an hour like this anyways). He could have cried, if everything hadn't gone black a second later.


	5. Humanness is Odd

When Sesi finally awoke, she decided that in all events that you should awake with the feeling as if there were a tiny stampede running about inside your skull, or that your insides had been removed, stuffed in a blender, puréed, and stuffed back in… would never be a good place or time to be.

She groaned as she sat from her spot she had so unceremoniously passed out in just a few hours prior, lifting a hand to said aching cranium as if the pressure could relieve it.

Wait.

Hand?

She looked down, and on a closer (and relatively quick) inspection she found it was indeed a _hand._ Not a paw, but a hand. With opposable thumbs, she noted, wiggling one of the said appendages about. It felt really quite odd, having another toe… rather, finger, she supposed now, that could move like this did. She'd almost completely forgotten about her aching head at this point, her piquing curiosity fading it off to the back of her mind as she further inspected her new human body.

So Kowalski's invention had worked… he'd be ecstatic, she thought amongst herself, poking and prodding at her skin, pale like her hide but more pinkish (not incredibly so however), she kind of already missed her beautiful fur,.. This skin felt weird. Then she realized, her fur hadn't gone, when she reached a hand back up to her head; it instead had all migrated to her scalp. She was now sporting considerably long locks as pale as her fur originally, and completely. This had appeased her some to know.

Where was Kowalski anyways? She'd been too busy looking herself over to search for the penguin and tell him his invention had been successful. She cast a glance around and noticed she was in fact the first one up of them all… and they were all human too…

Oh dear…

She didn't think _that_ was supposed to happen…

She got up onto her feet (after a few humiliating attempts at it, for which she was glad all the others had yet to awake for her own personal sake. Some poor unfortunate soul among the unconscious bodies scrambled on the floor was probably going to feel her trip over them for a few days after.) The Alaskan scanned over the others. She was surprised to find it was relatively easy to tell who was who, even as humans. Marlene was the easiest to tell, of course, her being the only female aside from Sesi herself; the lemurs were a bit harder but not by much: A heavier-set… about, middle aged she'd say, man rich in color… Maurice. Much smaller than the other two, with big eyes (she could tell, even if they were shut, those huge eyes were waiting just behind those lids to further stare into her soul.), much lighter than the other two but still more pigmented than any of the penguins, light beige mid-length hair to boot. And then there was Julien, obviously, him being the tallest of the three, slender with a darker skin tone but not necessarily matching Maurice, and finally slightly curly, but not overly so, jet hair.

And then there were the penguins. Equally pigmented, but luckily enough there was still enough diversity about them set aside from the color of their feathers (now darkened and straight hair), and their near-as-pale-as-her-own skin. She scanned over the four, whichever one had the scar and Mohawk would be Rico… bingo. He was easy to spot. Private would be the youngest, so therefore the smallest of them all. Kowalski and Skipper would only be the somewhat difficult ones to tell apart, that were, if Kowalski wasn't so tall, and if Skipper didn't have his boxy, prominent jaw line/entire rest of his head.

She'd also notice another thing. They were all extremely lacking in the clothes department… which really made sense, as they were wearing none to begin with, but still, how did Kowalski not think of this? He could turn an animal into a human but he couldn't generate at least a pair of pants to go with it? (Maybe this is what he hadn't been finished with, a side of her defended.) She herself, in all honesty, didn't really mind; this was her default state at all times, (as well as the others'), but she didn't think actual real humans, who considered clothes as bare a necessity as food or water, would be so fond of her going around like she was. Luckily, the souvenir shops usually had some clothes for sale. The Alaskan left through the back entrance and out towards mentioned shop, grabbing a discarded towel she'd found in a corner to wrap around herself.

'May as well get the others something too… who knows how long Kowalski set this to last.'

Meanwhile Sesi went shopping (or rather, breaking, entering, and stealing); the others back at the base were just coming back to reality. One by one they'd begun to realize their predicament, and it wasn't until Kowalski awoke that (those who'd already awoken with him) realized just how screwed they really were: The machine used waves to tell when it was time to change an animal back to their original state; in the meantime it'd install a temporary tracker made up of types of radiation within them, keeping an internal log of the time said animal had been transformed, and when it hit that hour it was supposed to go back, it'd send signals like a television out and kick-start the reverse transformation no matter where said animal was.

With the device broken, the tracker had been placed inside them but the internal log was no longer intact to keep base with the time they were supposed to transform back. In short, they'd be stuck like this; Kowalski had tried his best to explain. "Until I can fix it. But that may take some time." He went to grab his notepad from the floor, pen fumbling around in his clumsy fingers, those of which he'd never had to deal with before with his prior flippers, as he'd try to write down options and estimate just how long before it'd be whole once more.

"No way, get your own!" Marlene and Julien could be heard arguing in the near distance over a singular and seemingly last towel, that of which the ex-otter had scooped up and covered herself with as immediately as she'd seen her own lack of decency… but as far as Julien was concerned; it was Kings first, ladies second, and like hell that was going to fly for Marlene!

Skipper was exasperated. All the times the lemur had gotten them into some sort of new trouble were too countless to accept any longer. He pointed a finger at the no-longer-lemur-king, "You! We wouldn't be in this mess if it wasn't for you!"

Julien threw up his hands, his conflict with the now chestnut-haired girl temporarily dissipated for the time being, for which she took this opportunity to side-step out of sight while the two males duked it out with one another (_with_ her towel! Victory!). "I'm not the one to be being blamed here. If Sesi hadn't been talking her smack about me, then none of this would being either!"

Skipper's eye twitched. Him and his damned broken language too… everything about the non-lemur infuriated him, and now for his mistakes they'd be forced to leave their homes until Kowalski could right his (yes, Julien's, no matter how much he tried to deny any fault on his behalf,) mess he'd made.

Some could have called it a miracle that just as Skipper had been ready to throttle his taller counterpart, Sesi had chosen this time to step back through the doors.

She took one look around, doing her best to keep her eyes averted from the lower half of the room for her own sake. Seeing everyone up she started, "Ah good, you're all awake. I have clothes for us." She held up arm-fulls of t-shirts, hoodies, and jeans that she'd curiously managed to haul back all on her own despite her short stature as a human. The Alaskan had already deigned to dress herself: She donned only a plain black hoodie, hood down. (Plain, minus, of course, the proud zoo logo printed on its front as most of the others similarly were.) plus some jeans. Who knew souvenir shops sold jeans? (The articles had taken her a little longer to figure out than she'd like to admit, but what animal could blame her? None of them wore clothes either!)But shoes, however, (she'd just figured out why humans needed them so bad on her way to the shop,) she'd have to find somewhere else, which was unfortunate. Why were human feet so tender?! Her toe pads as a wolf were at least tough, but she hurt these on just about everything!

She let a good portion of the stuff onto the floor, taking only personally a few more articles (a choice between a t-shirt or a tank top, with a couple sizes of jeans) over to Marlene whilst the men were distracted with getting their own clothes, not knowing how exactly modest was she, but nevertheless sparing her from having to dress in front of them. Marlene in the end would take the green foresty colored tank top (Good, Sesi thought, much better choice for your hair color and skin tones…) plus both the jeans to try on before Sesi turned from the entire scene with hands on her hips, waiting, but giving them their privacy.

She turned back to the men only for a second to check on their progress, but what she saw had almost made her burst out laughing. Kowalski was doing the bunny hop trying to fit into a pair of pants, whilst Julien had a shirt somehow stuck around his elbows and was in urgent requiring of Maurice's assistance to pry it off him. Skipper almost had it down besides the fact his own shirt was inside out. Only Private and Rico had seemed to manage their way fine into the clothes, (Rico probably had experience, dressing up his doll and everything…) and were now standing on ceremony for the rest to figure it out. Well… Sesi thought as she turned back to face the wall still keeping in a devious giggle, at least she hadn't had as bad of a time as them!

Once the ordeal was over with, and she was sure they were all decent, the women could look back once more. Marlene however, had been prepared with a question, and so Sesi would have no time to judge what the men had decided to wear; Marlene had began asking why the ex-wolf had been looking to leave so badly, why she didn't like the zoo.

"It's not that I don't like the zoo," Sesi began. "It's a very nice one; I've been to a lot, so I would know this… but… it's just that" She paused.

She'd never told anyone just why she was so desperately on her way back to her homelands, but now she found herself in an immanency for having to tell judging by the looks she was getting thrown from all over the room. She knew this look well, it was the infamous 'tell or we'll keep bugging you until you do.' (And with Julien on their side and how persistent he is, she'd never win.) "It's a bit of a long story".

"We-apparently now- have the time." He stole a glance at his newly determined adversary, who gave a shrug at the glower, still failing to see how any of this was his fault.

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Wow! Hooraaaaay! I've got my first (multiple!) reviews and even a favorite! I'd like to say thanks and give a shout-out to LadyBookworm18 for taking the time to comment (and also for the favorite, of course! (I admit I had gotten a little sad that I hadn't got any feedback yet ^_^' but you just made my entire day!))


	6. The Rite

So… This chapter is where it gets a bit more… graphic. Hence, the T rating. Nothing lemony, but… kind of bloody; and why yes, the entire chapter is indeed a flashback.

I also give you a bit of a dip into Sesi's culture (it is very important to her, after all.)

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_It was winter that year it happened. It was winter, and Mother Earth had been raging furiously at all in Sesi's homeland for the near entirety of it. Colder than cold could have been imagined; herds of prey found themselves grieved and dreadfully sparse between her father's tribe and the humans her pack shared hunting grounds with. Only the strongest elk and caribou would survive, and stronger the prey became, the truer the statement would prove for her own people as well. The more able the herds, the faster, the more difficult it proved to even catch up without losing too much energy in the process, the stronger, the likelier it was to come back with dire wounds; or not at all… and for every hunter that was lost to either the harsh conditions or to injury, the sooner the younger generations would have to prepare to replace them._

_ It became no easier, the further they descended into the icy season. Desperate times had called for desperate measures on both the sides of the wolves and the sides of man. Members would come back, bringing food from the human's livestock. Pinned and trapped the animals were, it was forbidden; but when the Alpha, Atka, looked over his tribe seeing starvation looming over the heads of his subjects, newborns among them; he couldn't deny the right for one to feed their family._

_ What they hadn't counted on, however, was the humans reacting with such a livid rage as they would. They'd take to the skies in their flying machines, deigning to track the alpha's people down and running them to exhaustion before stepping out and shooting them, point-blank, once they could finally run no more. The leader wolf had never had to respond to such atrocities against his tribesmen and women before. Hunters could be killed and injured by elk or various other herds; it wasn't much a great thing for the wolves, but that's how the game of predator/prey works. It's, admittedly, fair that way… but to not even give your kills a chance to defend themselves was such a barbarous act, he'd had no choice but to respond by barring his people by any means of going anywhere near the livestock, no matter how he dreaded the consequences._

_ The bipeds wouldn't cease their own action however. It relented. Atka was now convinced they were trying to wipe out his people; between the threat of starving and the aerial predation of his people, he'd become desperate. Who was to tell what would happen if they'd found the den? He couldn't afford it. Not when his wife, Sura, was expecting; and so they moved._

_ They'd traveled long and hard. They were getting further from the humans, true, but morale was at an all-time low. Too many had been lost, too many were losing the fight just on the way to wherever they were going. Sura would sometimes worry that her own child wouldn't even make it to birth, and it was at times like these that Atka could have lost the will to go on, to just succumb to their fate. But they would go on. If not his child then at least some of his pack would make it._

_ And then something happened. Something,… like a miracle. A rag-tag group of adolescents, from here or there; packs all over Alaska, departed to look for… something better - greener grass on the other side of the hill. They'd stumbled upon them when what was left of Atka's hunters had spotted some caribou, which apparently the teens had too. They'd met on the hunting grounds, unsure of one another at first, but in the end had elected to work together; they'd bring in twice as much game for both sides. It'd been a hunt that day like had been forgotten, and for the first time in months, the leader wolf's men, women, and children could fill their bellies._

_ The younger wolves had happily shown the pack back to where they were staying so they could all rest for, at least, one night before they'd be up and moving on in the morning. But they wouldn't move on. In the end, they'd decide to join forces, keeping Atka as an alpha. The few teens had managed to bring morale back to what remained of the tribe, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, they were a spectacle to behold. Excited and enthusiastic about life; nothing could beat them. Soon his pack would know this feeling once more also, learning to once again be happy within their lives. _

_Later that spring, the birth of a princess had officially signified the turning of the cold. She would be named Sesi – Ice, in her native tongue, after what she had so bravely, and miraculously lived through. Mother Nature and her favorite creation had, in the end, tried to tear them apart, but she had failed, for they would thrive!_

_"All the money that e'er I had  
I spent it in good company  
And all the harm I've ever done  
Alas, it was to none but me!"_

_The pack howled with a well earned vigor in their voices at the well, old Celtic song. Three months before the princess turned her first year, it was time for her rite of passage!_

_ "And all I've done for want of wit  
To memory now, I can't recall  
So fill to me the parting glass  
Good night and joy be to you all!"_

_ Atka would be taking Sesi for her first ever hunt at daybreak; this was what canidae parents usually would for their children, but for the family of the alpha it was a particularly special occasion. To kick it off, they'd start the night prior with a celebration of grandeur. They'd feast, and they'd dance and sing through the whole night under the Divine Lights, and finally when it was time to go they sang the familiar song 'The Parting Glass'. They'd learned this from a wolf native to the Celtic lands, who'd immigrated back in the late 1600's. He'd been proudly revered at the time, surviving a slaughter of his own kind and bravely making his way to the America's, all the way up to Alaska! He'd sung it from his way of Ireland, and they'd sing the same for him when it was his time to go. And now they sang it when it was time for their children to, metaphorically, 'go', and become their own adults._

_'Forget sparring with the other brothers and sisters, this is the real deal!' Sesi beamed as she swaggered past the entourage of tribesmen and women, children too howling all in her honor, beside her father. Her father, Atka, was a proud elder by this time, white fur that once matched her own now hinted with silvery grey here and there, and twilight sky blue eyes that shone with wisdom._

_She would be proud if she could be half the leader he was, one day._

_"Fill to me the parting glass  
And drink a health whate'er befalls  
Then gently rise and softly call  
Good night and joy be to you all!"_

_ She cast only a glance to her mother, but what Sesi had seen… Sesi had previously thought she couldn't have had a bigger grin on her face, but she'd been proven wrong once she'd seen her mother's proud and bold smile at her daughter._

_"Of all the comrades that e'er I had  
They're sorry for my going away  
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had  
They'd wish me one more day to stay._

_Since it fell into my lot  
that I should rise,and you should not  
I'll gently rise and softly call  
Good night and joy be to you all!"_

_A hearty howl could be heard after the last line as her and her father were now formally departing for the hunting grounds. She could still hear them in the distance, she thought, throughout her entire way there. Or maybe it had been her excitement getting to her… Either way she'd never been so excited for anything in her whole life! Even her first spar (a win, mind you) dulled in comparison, and even then the pride had been abundant that day amongst her parents and peers alike, and had thoroughly surprised the rest of the pack with her fair winning streak even after it, for she was tiny among Arctic Wolves (but hell if she wasn't fierce and bold in competition! They'd asked her to kill a caribou today, but if she could help it, she would bring back the heart of a bear!) _

_ But she'd never get the chance. Sesi had been busy trying to prompt her father into playing in the snow with her like they used to do when she was but a wee pup, rolling about wildly before dumping an arm-full on him, laughing… Atka caved after the snow had been poured all over his head, and stooped down to getting an even-larger arm-full to return the favor, but while they'd paused from their hunting trip to enjoy the snow as they'd once had, neither had noticed the roar of an engine in the far distance that was only getting steadily louder._

_ Neither had noticed until the metal hellion was already upon them, and by then, Atka had already known it was too late for at least one of them if not both if he didn't act quickly._

_ Sesi had been utterly confused. She'd never seen such a thing in all her life, and had found herself rooted to the spot like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car. She found herself, next, being forced out of this though when she was harshly shoved in the opposite direction and, her father bellowing at her to run. To which she complied. Her father was just as fierce, even more so, than she, and had actually fought off bears before along with many other terrible things. He'd led his pack through a slaughter and famine. If he told her to run from something, this something was bad, and she hadn't even the thought that he wouldn't be following shortly enough behind her… but when she turned, she couldn't have been more wrong. Atka had run the other direction, opposite of her, and with the plane._

_ She turned back, ready to go to her father's aid no matter the cost, but what she'd seen next halted her. A thundering 'CRACK!' and a deep, fleshy wound exploded open on her father's back leg, sending him sliding into the snow, staining the pure color a shade of crimson she'd never forget. The plane slowed, hovering just above the frost where her father now lay, immobilized but still alive, snarling loudly up at the bipedal monster that Sesi had an urge to run after and tear its throat out of… if her father hadn't barked out a loud "GO!" at her, all the while his gaze didn't leave the beast._

_ It was approaching him now, and Sesi had to tear her eyes from the scene. She ran, ran to the nearest patch of trees she could see, tears ran freely down her face when she'd heard the last 'CRACK!'. And she'd known he was gone. It'd felt like a part of her had left this world with that last boom of what she'd later come to know as a gun, and she couldn't hide her sobs when she heard laughing – LAUGHING - over her father's corpse, simply another pelt to add to their collection._

_ She'd tucked herself away under a semi-uprooted tree while she waited for the humans to go, but she also didn't move when they finally did, hearing the plane engine revving off into the sunset with her father on board. What was she going to say to mom? She cried freely now, she'd been so sure of everything just an hour ago, how did something like this come along and just tug it all apart so easily?..._

_ She awoke the next morning, hearing a crunching in the snow not far from where she was hidden. She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep at any point… she must have exhausted herself out, but now she had whatever this thing was to deal with... 'please let it be an elk, I can't handle anything more' she nearly screeched in her own mind in frustration with it all. 'Or let it be a bear to come and eat me so I can be done!'_

_ But it wasn't that easy. It would never be that easy. She heard voices, and no not wolves, not bears, not any kind of hoofed animal… She could only guess it was humans. She tried to listen in to what they were talking about but could only hear scraps of conversation here or there._

_ "… Been at it again…. Lucky if there's any left…' A deeper voice said. Who's been at what again? Left of what?_

_ "… not all…. If we don't do this, though" This voice was getting closer. She tried to push herself further under the tree "They may as well be extinct." It concluded. She could now see thick shoes and some kind of wear similar to those of the hunters just a few feet in front of where she'd hidden herself. Of course her milky hide was no help here, the roots being quite well dirt-colored._

_ "Wait…" The closer one whispered, lowly "I think I see one."… And then she saw what looked like the weapon that had killed her father pointed at her, but with a lesser 'crack!' and her world had gone dark a second later…_

"Since it fell into my lot  
that I should rise,and you should not  
I'll gently rise and softly call  
Good night and joy be to you all!"

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So... wow, first serious chapter in this whole thing so far! Lemme know what you guys think, if I should do more chapters like this or not. :)

Song used in story is Shaun Davey's version of "The Parting Glass"


	7. Authority

Well, would you look at that? I went three whole days without updating! Had a massive writer's block. And a massive migraine. (Did you guys miss me?)

As for the last chapter, about the hunters with their planes: This is a real thing in Alaska. It's called 'aerial wolf hunting', and I'd suggest looking into it (if you're not sensitive to such material, I don't want to go PETA on you guys.) and educating yourself about it. It's an unsportsmanlike conduct of the highest form and should no longer be tolerated. /rant.

Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the last chapter, so far, being the first serious one of the story (if I could have added a third genre, it probably would have been humor (maybe not after this one though)), but I intend to do more of them in the future.

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"That's why I need to get home. I've been gone for far too long," She'd concluded her, almost tearful at points, story (though she'd managed to keep it together well enough). She'd had the time whilst circulating the zoos to cope with her loss, about a couple years worth of time. She'd even, in time, come to accept that not all humans were the murderous beasts she'd decided they were on that fateful day. At least, the little ones weren't. She was still wary about the bigger ones… But now she had to count herself among them, for the time being. This was going to be difficult.

"So what you are telling me… " Julien inquired, a curious glint in his eyes and tapping the tips of his fingers together in a perplexed gesture, "is that you are being like… only a year old?" He did understand that canines typically didn't have such a long lifespan as him, a lemur… But in any case this revelation made him fairly uneasy in a way.

For a second she would only offer him a skeptical quirk of the brow at his question. Was that all he'd gotten out of that entire thing? Her age? She would have been offended, if it hadn't at least shown he had some morsel of a conscious, however small it may be, that he hitting on someone in the equivalent of their early teens wasn't such a good idea. "… Nnno." She answered finally, and unfortunately, truthfully, "I'm at least three." As soon as she saw the king's face light right back up at the apparently more acceptable age, she could have punched herself, right there and then. Just knocked herself right out. 'Fly, you fool!' a distant voice called from within the recesses of her mind, (or maybe it was Marlene,) but she elected to ignore it for the time be-

"AND, you are also being a princess among your people then, no?"

Sesi frowned. Maybe she _should_ go.

"Enough, ringtail –"

"What ringtail? I am a human!" The new Julien argued. He had a point, as far as he was concerned; no longer was he ringed, and no longer did he have a tail. He quite liked this new form so far anyways… He was tall, even among Sesi… especially among Sesi, (she was actually a bit short, he'd noticed) and now they had a common… species… Things were on the up and up so far for him, but most unfortunately his crown no longer fit on his head without looking ridiculously tiny. He'd have to have Maurice make a more size-appropriate one for the time being.

He'd bent down to pick up a particularly shiny piece of Kowalski's shattered invention to gaze at his own reflection in, further inspecting himself. He'd poke here and there at his new facial features, or preen at his semi-curly locks, meanwhile Kowalski fumed. It'd been by his doing that the machine was broken in the first place, and an angry Kowalski was an unusual Kowalski. The others weren't sure they were ready to deal with that yet so the ex-penguins simply held him back, with reassurances of 'it isn't worth it's, and 'let it go man's.

"Who was knowing that I'd be so handsome even as a human?" He'd commented lightly to himself, taking only a few more seconds of self-admiration before he turned, offering the fragment over to Sesi. "You should be looking at yourself as well." The ex-canid had to admit… she was curious… she reached out to grab the piece, ignoring the king's wink at her, saying something about how only her handsomeness could rival his… well, knowing how highly he regards himself, that may have been quite the compliment if it hadn't sounded like he was talking about a man, so she simply settled for grimacing at his attempt.

"I want to see myself too…" Private griped to which Julien quickly hushed him.

"Royals first." He tsk'd at the youngest of their group; none of the others had seemed to be overly tolerating of this statement, however, deeming to glower at him when his back turned, and Sesi was much too distracted to notice Private's plea and so he pouted until it'd be his turn. Poor private.

She looked… really… good, actually… for a human, of course. She had very fair skin, but it looked very… charming on her, actually, and hair white as the snow from which she'd originated, hanging down to almost her hips. Her eyes were as pale, icy blue as ever too, and she did have to comment about… it looked like maybe some of her wolfish traits carried over, perhaps? She seemed to keep her pointed features, and natural eyeliner (some humans tried so desperately to get this look, she'd noticed before. Ha, she was going to be the envy of them all…)

Not to mention, her teeth. Her canines had remained unnaturally pointed, but all the rest had been changed into an omnivoric mix. Well,… it was somewhat comforting to know she could still bite someone if she needed to, but she doubted she'd get very far with this shortened snout. Humans seemed so physically… estranged from animals. Teeth weren't meant for damaging, claws… unless they grow them out, don't do a difference, and even when they do it's minimal. It was truly mindboggling for her sometimes, to see such an unimpressive creature at the top of the food chain. Then she'd remember what they almost succeeded in doing to her people, and then she could understand.

Not only her, but the rest of them had seemed to retain elements of their other forms. For example, Marlene kept her more rounded features and carried over her chestnut brown color into her hair and bright green eyes, semi-tan skin matching closely to Mort's complexion (except Mort had much lighter brown hair, and not-as-dramatically-but-still-pretty-disturbingly large eyes that beamed through you.) Julien had retained some of the mask-like dark circles around his eyes, limber frame to boot… Maurice was just as bad off weight wise as he was as an Aye-Aye… and had a horrifyingly vast amount of chest hair. The penguins… it was kind of hard to tell what they had kept besides their color schemes and facial features… but they could at least still tell them apart, and that was as good a sign as any.

True, she'd be much easier to notice with looks so nontraditional of a human's, but if she moved fast enough, this hopefully wouldn't be beholden of a challenge to her. As for the others, she wasn't exactly sure of what they were going to do now… and how could she be sure that once she did arrive in Alaska that they'd get the machine fixed in time? Most humans are actually fairly delicate if you take their technology away from them; many would perish quickly if suddenly placed in the environment that was her homeland, and would probably count herself among those who would; not being a human for the past entirety of her life, she wouldn't trust herself to just stumble in and know what to do. The thought never occurred to her of what would happen should she go home and not have her fur, obviously, she'd never needed to consider it before now. Now that she did, however, she supposed it could be a real problem.

"So what are we going to do now?" She started, "I need to get back and I don't think you can stay here." The last statement was more of an announcement than it was a guess, both her and Skipper knew this. He rested his chin on a hand as he puzzled over the thought for a moment or two. It was odd, really, to have another leader around, one who was more or less on his side (if not, then her own side), and a whole hell of a lot more level-headed than another certain mammal…

Lemur…

Julien…

In Skipper's opinion, anyone more competent than him could at least be taken with a grain of salt, and Sesi was to become the alpha? Alphess? Alphess; of her own entire pack, no help to note of… She should probably get a taste of it before she went back, hm?

Yes, he decided as he began, "Well, what would you have us do?" He challenged her. The wolf's reflexes and willingness to fight would only take a monarch so far; they needed to expect the unexpected and be damn well prepared to act in case of emergency. This may as well have counted as both; in the few short hours they'd have for planning while the night lasted, the keepers would arrive by morning. They needed to be long gone before then, because Skipper didn't expect the humans would take too kindly to a handful of strangers sitting around the penguin exhibit. Strangers dressed in nothing but stolen zoo merchandise. Meanwhile, in the back, Kowalski had been preparing his options clipboard.

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Well, didn't that migraine just take it's toll? Shortest chapter so far, I'm so ashamed! I… have lost the rhythm (for now, I don't plan on letting that stay.)

And no, if you were wondering, they aren't now like… preschoolers because of their (lack of) years. Their age equivalence is leveled out with how mature they were as the animal they were. Since they are all pretty much adults (besides private, and… potentially, Mort,) they would all be adults here as well. (Just clearing that up, in case).


	8. Trek to the North

Sesi's face brightened at the request for an opinion. Her opinion. She had already taken the time and consideration into thinking of a plan of action on her way to the souvenir shop, matter of fact. What she hadn't counted on, however, was that the leader penguin would even need her thoughts on the matter, pushing his authority off and onto her; they'd seemed to be one step ahead of her this whole process… but he had all the same. Or, at least he was thinking about it. In any case, it needn't take her long to reply, answer already prepped.

"Assuming you don't already have a backup plan for a situation like this," She could have told by the unmoved facial expression of the commando ex-penguin that they probably indeed somehow did, but she continued anyhow, "You could come with me. You can't stay here, I wouldn't stay here. However, I don't know how to navigate all the way from here to Alaska, but I bet you could. Kowalski could fix the machine on the way; it may even be easier to find parts this way instead of having to scrounge for them around the zoo." She offered the genius avian. He considered it only momentarily,

"I _do_ spend an abnormal amount of time doing this…" It was true. Extraordinary as said inventions were, most of them were fashioned out of second hand junk that had been littered about the place. Quite literally. "If we stopped at a junk yard, I would have time to find even better parts… I wouldn't have to use just anything I found…!" It took Kowalski's brain only a fraction of a second to catch up with what his mouth was saying, but once it had it was like the key to the universe had dawned itself upon him.

"I'm in!" He'd agreed excitedly. He hadn't even thought about this their first time around the world; rather they wouldn't have had the time anyways but _now…_ now his project was the only thing hinging this potential expedition together; they'd have to let him search around a bit! He might even make something that could impress the dreaded Dr. Blowhole. He beamed, eyes travelling up towards the ceiling as he rooted though his imagination, a wide grin on his long face. An invention that would even make that smarmy bottlenose squirm in jealousy! How delightful.

Sesi gave a quick nod at just one of the taller of their group, a bright smile lacing her own face at his obvious furor for the idea. She shifted her attention back towards Skipper – who still looked as though he needed convincing, and it dropped once more. She started again, "It'll also keep us on the move. If you stay rooted too long, someone's bound to start noticing you, you know." Who exactly was going to be doing this, or who'd actually care, she didn't know… but Skipper seemed the paranoid type, and she was going to furiously bank on that fact. She needed help. She'd gone too long without it and it'd cost her too much time to keep on.

Skipper had thought the plan decent in any case but even he'd forgotten the risk here. As much as he'd hate to say it, they had enemies who could be keeping surveillance on them this very instant. Staying moving at this time would be optimal. They were weak, as it were. These bodies were foreign to them, and would take time to adjust to. They'd have to learn to socialize with the humans, something they'd been previously barred from doing. Their methods of hiding and stealth would be useless now, they'd have no choice but to keep moving until Kowalski's invention was fixed.

"We'll do it." He decided. "We'll help you." True, the she-wolf may have been able to get up to Canada, but how she'd actually get in would be another story. She had no passports, she had no I.D.; as far as the United States government was concerned she didn't exist. It'd be difficult for her to get really _anywhere_ without their help. She didn't know the city's layout like they did, the journey would be much too difficult. They'd already been around the world once, what was Alaska to them?

She could hardly contain herself as she'd heard the affirmation. They would help her! She could go home now! Or they'd at least try to get her there… so in any case she wouldn't be travelling by herself anymore so that was a plus, at least, but they'd be trying! She almost let out a hysterical laughter at finally finding some relief in her world for once, doing a victory dance all the while. She'd however managed to compose herself in time, settling instead for a couple excited bounces on her toes. Deeming even this reaction a little much, she cleared her throat, straightening out quickly to regain her previous poise. She gave a single nod and a soft smile. "Thank you."

"Not a worry, miss." Skipper replied shortly, heading for the back door. None of them anymore would be able to fit through the food-dish entrance. He stopped just after pulling open the door as if to hold it for the rest, for which the rest of the ex-penguins quickly began shuffling for, familiar with the drill. "Shall we be heading out then?" He'd said to any of those who were remaining.

"Think Skippah, this place could be better than Antarctica. I hear it's not so cold there!" Private mentioned off-handedly as he passed his leader through the entrance. Antarctica hadn't exactly been high up on their places they'd like to stay. Much too cold, much too desolate. At least up north, there was more life, not to mention slightly not-as-low temperatures.

"Could be a good studying opportunity…" was the last thing that could be heard from the three others as they continued down the hall, and it wasn't hard to guess who'd said it.

In Julien's mind however, things could not have been going worse. He'd liked the aspect of his human body, but if it meant his new love (whether she realized it or not, he was going to persist regardless) was going to leave him, then… then… wait.

"We will be going onto this expedition also." The leader king quickly determined, an idea brewing around inside the potentially empty case that would be his skull. "I could use the vacation." He explained, as he begun for the exit as well. Knowing the penguins, that'd be all they'd have to expect from his reasoning. "Maurice, you will be attending me whilst I prepare for the trip." While he was somewhat saddened his new crown-making would have to be put on hiatus for now, he suspected he'd need his advisor for his plan much more, and would discuss it on his way to his mini-kingdom within the zoo. Mort skipped happily after his king, believing his attendance was already implied, while Maurice followed behind shortly, breathing a heavy sigh through his nose. His last idea of a vacation was a winterland well below freezing.

"Whoa whoa, waitwaitwait… What about me? Are you just going to leave me here?!" Marlene piped up, finally getting her opportunity to speak. "I can't go outside, Skipper, you know this!" True she'd been trying to condition herself, but… she'd never gone over an hour before she flew completely off the handle and went crazy. She just couldn't handle going outside…

"Why not?" Sesi squeaked. She hadn't counted on anyone else not being able to go, but now that she thought about it, there were a particular lot of (now) people who got transformed with her. Maybe not all of them could go… but Sesi didn't exactly feel like being the only girl amongst a bunch of men, one of whom was already expressing a much greater fondness for her than she'd care for.

"It's nothing you need to worry yourself with," The leader ex-penguin removed himself from the door, going to stand by the darker haired girl. "Nothing _you_ need to worry yourself with either, Marlene. I'm sure you'll be just fine." He reassured with a confident smile, resting a hand on her shoulder.

Sesi cocked a brow at Marlene's quickly reddening face that Skipper, who seemed incredibly observant, was apparently somehow oblivious to as he began leading her towards the door. Sesi followed suit, face contorting into such a knowing smile that her eyes practically disappeared under it's width. It was a wonder how she didn't bump into the door on her own way out.

Outside, the other three penguin troops awaited their leader. Kowalski went over to discuss their situation with the Skipper, having grabbed their emergency funds in case they'd ever need to go somewhere… and require money. They'd probably have enough, and more; you wouldn't believe all the wallets that get left at the zoo.

The ex-lemurs arrived shortly after a bit of exasperated waiting. It was nearing Dawn and they'd have to leave much sooner than then if they wanted to get out without arousing suspicion. They'd look suspicious enough as it was, dressed in the clothing they were. It was everything zoo, and nothing not. They didn't even have shoes. It looked like some fifth graders had gotten lost on a field trip one day and hadn't returned till now, wearing the same things they'd had when they'd disappeared. That or some out of sorts, ragtag group of adults just really loved the zoo.

They'd left soon after. Out the front gate and onto the streets, it was in the penguins hands now to navigate them to their destination. It, fortunately, was still very early by time they'd gone. The sun had yet had yet the chance to rise over the skyscrapers that stretched up towards the sky's limits, and the streets… they'd be as empty as they'd ever be in New York City. Only the occasional car would roll on down the street, or a passerby would their paths here or there, though most proved too tangled up in their own lives to even glance in their direction.

Sesi could have been emotional at it all. The cool not-even-yet-morning air against her face felt better than she could have ever imagined in such a city. Even with the intermittent passing of a car or pedestrian, everything had a very… serene, feeling to it. It was calm. Peaceful, even. Even the sky was tame; very unlike what she was used to in her homeland. Nothing could be seen besides a mere sliver of a crescent of light that was Brother Moon. Not only was it the atmosphere, but to know that this was her first taste of freedom in two years, and that she was going to potentially be home… very, very soon. The thought nearly overwhelmed her, but she'd barely slipped by with her own accord.


	9. Julien's Genius Idea

The group was still travelling when the city awoke. People seemed to come right out of the walls and join them on the streets, cars blared horns at one another; roads quickly became crowded. They'd only gotten a few blocks before the troupe came to an agreement; they did actually need sleep, and that maybe they should find a hotel. While the penguins had been up keeping surveillance on Sesi, Sesi had been up forming her escape (and post-escape) plan. While the two had been doing this, Julien had been keeping up Marlene with his bragging, Maurice and Mort in tow. Essentially, none of them had gotten a wink since the night before last.

It wasn't really hard to find a hotel; New York was a huge tourist trap, really, there had to be a surplus of them. Skipper could see this being a good thing, in any case however. It'd give them a much-needed structure; they could rest during the day, and travel by night, when they were much less likely to be spotted. This manner could also prove more efficient, as the streets were nearly empty at night, and in the day crowded beyond belief. If the leader penguin could avoid the pushy nature of his fellow New Yorkers that he'd had the displeasure of observing at the zoo, and somewhat now, then any plan was a good one.

It wasn't exactly a fancy place they'd found; they'd have to keep a budget after all. Getting checked in was easy enough, the attendant needn't their information, and they had no luggage to speak of besides what everyone could carry on their person. Granted, this did make the front-desk girl fairly suspicious, as she eyed them over, the whole lot of them; only two women among five men, two… possibly, children (one of them looked a little odd to her, but whatever. She's seen stranger), but neither of the girls seemed old enough to be their mothers, nor did they hold any resemblance. All they carried was left in the hands of two of the taller of the men. One, held an mp3player, though it was buried in one of his pockets along with his hand and a deck of cards (to pass the time). The other had a clipboard, notepad, and- oh god- a camera? He'd explained, "For research". Sure, buddy.

"Thank you,… and please, keep the noise down." The attendant reminded, after the group had begun towards their own rooms. It wasn't the first time men and women had come to their hotel with a camera prepped, and it probably wouldn't be the last. The slim, blonde breathed a heavy sigh before returning to her work,… which was really just playing solitaire on the computer. 'Some people…'

"I'm bunking with Sesi. Ladies first, boys." Marlene called before any else could. No way did she want to spend the night in bed with any of the guys, she nearly squirmed at the idea of having to share; Mort would probably be trying to grope at her feet all night. Julien is just obnoxious, not only that but she could see him being the active-sleeping type. He'd probably kick her out of the bed without even realizing it. Rico… it wouldn't be her feet he'd be trying to grope. Skipper,… no, it'd be too awkward… Private would have probably been the only one she could stand, but then where would that leave Sesi? She was brought out of her thoughts when mentioned she-wolf smiled a thank you at her. This'd reserve them a bed to themselves, Sesi had immediately noted, and was fairly grateful for it.

"Very well. Everyone else, find out who you're going to stay with." Skipper decided shortly before continuing. "As for me, I'll go ahead and take the liberty of reserving the single room for myself." There were five beds to speak of. Two of the three rooms were double-bed, whilst the third, apparently Skipper's, was singular. Surprisingly, however, Julien didn't argue this point, but had instead deemed Maurice his bunk mate for the night. Skipper, needless to say, found this odd, but he wasn't going to complain if for once the deluded lemur king wasn't trying to somehow screw him over.

In the end, Kowalski and Rico would end up sharing another one of the beds; it was standard during their operations to have to sleep in close proximity with one another so they'd never really seen a problem with it. Private, too polite to speak up, had ended up instead with Mort much to his dismay. He'd kept his composure though. He didn't really mind the small lemur, but he'd rather not have to be in this position. When it came time to decide the rooms, Julien had, beyond anyone's intuition had chosen the room in which the girls would stay. This, of course, was a thing called sarcasm I had just used, so in all reality, everyone saw it coming. Sesi had no argument against it though; if he stayed over in his bed then everything would be fine.

It was about twenty minutes in, after they'd all gotten settled; Marlene had the t.v flipped over to the news. It was one on the very short list of channels the hotel had, and it happened to be a segment on them! Apparently, several of the animals have obviously escaped (once more) from the facility and the authorities are to be kept on a tight watch for the missing animals, a dangerous arctic wolf amongst them. The zoo is being placed under a strict inspection to ensure this doesn't happen again… well, that could be a bit of a problem. Marlene decided they could worry about it tomorrow though, seeing as Skipper hadn't yet come over to discuss the situation with them, and she rather enjoyed the peace of not being barged in on.

It was about another ten minutes before the four animals agreed they weren't going to be able to sleep anytime soon. Their diurnal circadian rhythms had yet to catch up to their new human nature, in which they could sleep in either the a.m. or p.m. so until the next nighttime, they would remain awake. To pass the time, Julien had come up with a brilliant plan. He'd removed himself from the floor in which they were sitting to play cards and went over to the hotel-provided phone, looking over the tab of numbers left beside it; he punched in the number to the front desk.

"What are you doing?" Sesi inquired, more curious than skeptical. Who did the lemur possibly have to call at a time like this? Obviously he wouldn't know any humans, and animals; they weren't even sure if they could understand fellow animals anymore. The others gave him a quizzical glance, eyes momentarily pried from their game, as Julien brought a finger to his lips, shh'sng her as he began to speak.

"Hi, can you being patching me through to a Mr. Skipper?" He asked into the phone. The front desk? Couldn't he just go over to Skipper's room if he wanted to talk to the penguin? Sesi was the next to remove herself from her seat on the floor going to stand by the tallest of the four, the other two following behind quickly. She heard what likely, was the attendant they'd met earlier, but what she'd said, exactly, Sesi couldn't make out. Curse these weak human ears!

"Yes, room I14. Thanks to you." He said finally. He pushed a button on the phone's stand and suddenly they could hear the other side of the phone's conversation very well.

"Patching you through now, sir." Yes, it was indeed the slim blonde they'd met at the desk just about a half hour ago, and then suddenly the other side of the call was ringing, and Julien couldn't suppress a laugh at the stupidity he was about to commit. The other three were passing sideways glances at each other at again, the implied stupidity the ex-lemur was about to commit, and then the line picked up.

"…Hello?" said a rather confused sounding Skipper into the phone. Who would possibly be calling him here? 'Unless we've been found', and suddenly the leader penguin's palms started to feel a tad sweaty. Julien had to cut a giggle before it left him, this was going to be great.

"Hello, sir?" Julien echoed quickly, in a, what Sesi would have considered an impossibly high-pitched voice for the lemur king, (but apparently wasn't), sounding quite effectively… unlike himself. Suddenly, the other three knew just what he was up to and had to suppress a laugh, even Maurice was finding it difficult as his leader continued in his ridiculous ruse.

"It's Becky from the front desk; we're getting some reports of noise coming from your room? You understand we have a policy, yes?" Marlene had to throw her hands over her mouth to contain her laughs. It wasn't even the fact they were tricking Skipper that was so funny, Julien's imitation was priceless. Who knew?

"Okay. I didn't realize I was making noise." He'd said almost tiredly. Sesi could only imagine the eldest penguin had actually managed to get to sleep… and they'd woken him for a prank call. She'd be so angry if it'd happened to her… but man was this was worth it.

"Well just make sure to keep it down, okay sir? Thanks." This was the last thing Julien said before he'd hung up the phone, and the whole room burst into laughter. They quickly had to remind themselves, however, that their prank victim was just a mere two doors down so they needed to be quiet. Unfortunately, the noise had reached the room over, and they soon found a curious private poking his head in from the door adjoining their rooms.

"What's goin' on in here?" He asked, though he didn't seem annoyed; he, in all reality, was just curious about the laughter and what was so funny. He'd once gone through a terrible trial of slaying a "haunted" bus once just to get a good laugh out of a joke (that in the end he wouldn't understand). He didn't plan on being left out of the loop here, he wanted to laugh too!

Marlene waved him on in, and behind him as he did so, suddenly appeared the rest of the penguin squad and Mort. Apparently, private hadn't been the only one wondering what was going on over in their room. "Couldn't sleep?" she presumed, to which she received a quartet of nods. "Us either, we… thought of something to pass the time though." She didn't hold back a quiet laugh as Maurice explained what they were doing. It earned a few guffaws here or there from the penguins, so Sesi guessed they were now in on the joke too.

They waited about a good fifteen to twenty minutes, returning to their cards in the meantime… though they had a bit more people than was traditional; so in the end they settled for just playing a severely botched game of blackjack. Quick and easy, the game was, so everyone'd get a chance to play. Once they were done with this, they decided it was time to call the leader penguin back.

"Shh! Shut up, everyone!" Julien had to remind the others as the front-desk girl patched them through once more. If Skipper heard their laughing the jig would be up, and what fun would that be? Not very much. They could hear the phone ringing from Skipper's room, before they heard it pick up once more.

"Hello." Skipper answered shortly, sounding much more exasperated then the last time they'd called him, but still equally as tired. He must've fallen back asleep in that time that they'd been playing cards. Oh man, they were going to get in so much trouble for this, the penguins collectively thought to themselves for a moment before Julien began –

"Hello sir!?" He'd start in with his mimicking of the blonde from just a floor down, and suddenly private had to find himself a pillow to squeal his laughs into, Rico giving a windy cackle in the back; hopefully far enough to where he wouldn't be heard. Kowalski was already fairly entertained just by Julien's voice, but hadn't gone to hysterical laughter yet.

"Sir, I'm getting more complaints about noise?! Did you not understand when I said we have a policy?! You need to keep. The. Noise. Down!" Julien continued, his imitation becoming just as exasperated as Skipper seemed to be. He continued, "If you do not stop I will be forced to call security and have you removed! Do you understand?" Ahh, nothing beats the messing with of close friends…

"…Okay…" Skipper replied finally, sounding almost concerned by this point. Neither he, nor the others as far as he was aware, were making any noise… "Are you sure you have the right room, miss?"

"Is this I16?" Julien replied quickly, answer already prepared from the time he'd taken off from Blackjack. Of course he wasn't going to leave it with just one call, he had to be prepping for another! This thought had indeed crossed his mind while he'd thought it over.

"Yes…" The leader penguin admitted warily into the phone, before Julien would indeed confirm.

"We have the right room then. Just keep, the noise down. Okay, sir?" He dropped his tone, but he wasn't exactly finished yet…

"Sure…"

And just before Julien hung back up, nor their victim had the chance to register what was happening yet, just to twist the dagger, the ex-lemur reeled the device away from his mouth. He continued quietly, but enough to be clearly heard on the other side of the call, "Mister Blowhole, we've located the room." And then he hung the phone back up as quickly as possible. Julien had met the bottlenose before, and knew just how high up on the penguins' 'wanted' list he was. If anything were to throw Skipper into a tizzy, this would be it.

The other three of the squad looked dazed for a moment before they realized the sheer genius of the lemur's plan, a rarity in and of itself, and began into a hysterical fit of laughter, Kowalski included. The rest followed suit quickly. They didn't care anymore if Skipper would hear them, they could just play it off as if someone had told some beyond hilarious joke… one that had absolutely nothing to do with him, who didn't even waste a minute hauling himself out of bed and pounding on their door; judging by their laughs they all had to be there.

Sesi managed to quiet them all before she removed herself from a seat on one of the beds to go answer the door. She creaked the door open, as if she'd had no idea they'd be expecting a visitor; meanwhile Julien was quickly gathering his cards. They'd have to be leaving very soon after all.

"They're onto us, we have to go."

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Whoo boy, isn't Skipper gonna be mad once he figures this whole thing out? This probably isn't even the worst of it yet, mind you, (I really should have added humor as a category instead).

So this scene was inspired by a comedy segment I saw a couple weeks back on YouTube, by Gabriel Iglesias. If you look up 'Gabriel Iglesias – Hotel', (it'll be the one with Philipe and Mando), you should be able to find it pretty easily. Trust me it's hilarious.

Also a thanks to all those who've taken the time to write reviews! ^_^ You guys make my day!


	10. Temporary Hiatus

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I'm sure some of you have noticed the lack of updates recently, and I'm sorry to tell you but;

I am putting this story on a temporary hiatus.

I've been steadily running out of steam for this particular piece of writing and have little direction anymore (lots of poor planning on my part), and have had other things on my mind. I would wholeheartedly rather give quality then quantity, and so until I regain my motivation I will not be posting to this fiction.

I may continue writing other things, if anyone is interested in those (likely not POM, but still).

Once again, I apologize. However, like I said before, I do not intend for this hiatus to last, and will be returning to this story once I'm better motivated and have some more thought out plans lined up.

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